CAIRO, AMMAN, SIDON, KUWAIT  

Thousands of Muslims in the Middle East demonstrated against Israel and the United States and in favor of the Palestinian uprising yesterday following the Friday prayers before next week's key Arab summit.

About 3,000 people gathered in the Al-Azhar Mosque compound in the center of Cairo before being peacefully dispersed by police.

In Jordan, hundreds rallied outside a mosque in the northern city of Irbid chanting slogans of support for the uprising, the national news agency Petra reported. The protest was organized by Jordan's opposition Muslim Brotherhood, the agency said.

In Lebanon, Palestinians and Lebanese urged Arab states to stand firm in their support for the intifada when they hold their summit in Beirut. In the southern port city of Sidon, 3,000 Lebanese and Palestinian Islamists rallied under tight security, calling for an Islamic Palestinian state from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

In Kuwait hundreds of university students at Kuwaiti University on Wednesday observed a sit in protest of the Saudi peace initiative on the Middle East and against normalization with Israel.

Some 400 students of the faculty of letters demonstrated in the courtyard of the university chanting slogans saying " death for Sharon" after they set fire to the Israeli flag, the demonstrators handed over two messages to the American and British ambassadors who were taking part in a seminar at the university.